Communication Skills Training Exercises and Resources

The purpose of this exercise is to show that each person in a team has certain characteristics that can contribute to the team. It is not necessarily about casting each person into an ideal team member role; instead, it is about taking advantage of each person’s unique strengths.

The new age of virtual reality (VR) is upon us. We are still at early stages of VR development, but the field has shown a strong promise. Of all the new technologies that we are about to fully experience in everyday life, such as self-driving cars, drones or 3D printing, VR and AR (Augmented Reality) prove to be the strangest and the most magical technologies ever developed. Just imagine that in a few decades, when the technology has matured enough, as soon as you put on a VR headset, you will be transferred to an alternative universe the like of which you might have never seen before. It is the kind of environment that might feel more interesting than real life to the point that you may not want to leave it!

It could also be the opposite; you may go through a hellish environment and see how the world may look like if we don’t pay attention to important environmental issues or let greedy politicians bully us to annihilation. Either way, you will come out of the experience better informed and with a strong vivid memory.

This is an entertaining team building activity where delegates get to practice working together towards a common objective while following certain rules. It is ideal for exploring leadership, planning, strategic thinking, communicating and creative thinking.

This exercise helps delegates to understand and appreciate the power of eye contact and how it can affect emotional connection and emotional states. It is ideal in teaching emotional intelligence, body language and communication skills.

You can get the most from this exercise with the follow up discussions so make sure you allocate enough time for this.

This exercise helps delegates to understand the importance of acknowledging the view of a person they are having a conversation with irrespective of whether they agree with it or not. The exercise helps to create a vivid example which can then be discussed and explored further.

The main aims are:

Develop rapport through having a friendly conversation as opposed to being antagonistic with opposing views

This is a team building exercise where group members need to solve a problem together. Only two people are involved in the actual task and they cannot be replaced. Other team members should provide support or suggest solutions for the two people to follow through. As a result, this exercise provides ample opportunities to see how teams approach a given problem, communicate ideas and solve problems.

In this team building exercise, delegates work together to complete a task. It requires concentration, planning and fast execution. Here, the decisions made by one team can affect the performance of another so planning has to be as dynamic as the changing environment. This exercise is ideal to train people on quick decision making, leadership, persuasion skills and team work.

Generally, mobile phones are not welcome during a training course. They can distract or annoy people if not switched off. However, like any technology there can also be an advantage for having them around. A series of exercises are presented here that involve using mobile phones to conduct icebreakers, get people to know each other better and facilitate team building exercises.

For all the following exercises, it is assumed that delegates have access to their personal mobile phones, access to internet from the mobile and that they can send text and images to each other. To reduce potential data costs, get them use a Wi-Fi network if possible. For each exercise, instructions are provided on when contacts need to be exchanged or what kind of information needs to be shared. Give your own number to all delegates as several of the exercises require delegates to send you images. You may also need to have access to a system where you can receive these images and show them on a projector so everyone can see an enlarged view of them. This makes many of the exercises easier to conduct rather than relying on seeing images on individual small screens. An alternative approach is to print images directly from you mobile but this can be costly.

Having gone through this collection, if you know of other useful exercises involving mobile phones, please share them below in the comments section.

In this exercise, delegates practice giving precise and useful instructions. It helps with communication skills, especially within teams where people work closely with each other. Delegates also learn the value of feedback and how lack of feedback can slow down the communication process significantly.

This exercise is different from the standard exercises in this area. In a standard exercise, a delegate is supposed to describe a diagram and the other person is supposed to draw it based on the descriptions given. In some variations of this exercise, it is often the case that the describer can see what the illustrator is drawing and provide corrective feedback. In addition, the describer is also usually told not to talk directly what the image is and instead just describe it.

In this exercise, the difference is that the describer cannot see what is being drawn so can only respond to questions asked by the person who is drawing. In addition, there is no restriction on the type of communication made. For example, if the diagram is a square and the describer is supposed to explain it, he can simple say it is a “square” rather than explaining the shapes such as “4 equal lines connecting to each other at right angles” and then continue to expand on this to make sure the illustrator gets it right.

As a trainer, this exercise gives you an opportunity to cover topics such as making assumptions, how to give precise and clear instructions and how to help when a person cannot see what the other person is doing and needs to rely purely on the quality of the communication.

This is a team building exercise where delegates need to solve a problem while deprived of a particular sense. The purpose is to see how the group self-organises, communicates, understands what needs to be done to achieve the goal and executes their plan efficiently. This exercise is ideal for large groups.